Wake To Sleep

For three weeks since my trip to Ithaca, V's been waking up at night. Not every night, but probably 2 out of 3. After a while I figured out the pattern: she'd sleep six hours, wake for about two, then sleep about 3 more. The nights when she did sleep straight through it would be for 11 hours straight - like she was making up for lost time.

So Terry remembered the old "wake to sleep" trick that we learned from Dr. Sears last year for habitual night waking: anticipate the night waking by an hour - gently wake your child up an hour before their habitual time (so this really only works if your kid is waking up at about the same time every night), then put them back to bed. Do this 3-4 nights in a row.

Well it worked before, and it looks like it's working again! We've done it two nights running - when she falls asleep, we set the alarm for 4.5 hours from that point. When it rings, Terry gently picks her up, talks to her quietly, changes her diaper, gives her a drink of water, and puts her back in bed. So far she's gone back to sleep and completed her typical 9.5-10 hours without a peep.

10

(Photo by Jodi Read, 2005)

"What? We've been married for TEN YEARS?!?!?!?!"

Happy TENTH Anniversary to the man who never fails to make me laugh.
I'm glad you plan to live to be a 1,000 (at least)
I love you!

1 lb 1 oz

Yesterday we had our big anatomy ultrasound. I was happy that Terry was able to come with me since he missed all but one of the scans for Valerie. He marveled at the amount of research time and dollars invested in the development of this technology - it really is something else.

Everything looks good; they estimate the baby's weight at 1 lb. 1 oz. which is right on track for this point in the pregnancy. They measured the head, arms, legs, looked at the heart, kidneys, spine, and confirmed that yes, we ARE expecting a BOY! Terry was convinced that he counted seven toes but the tech and I only saw 5 per foot :-). His head is up behind my belly button and feet are moving all around, up by his head, then down kicking my bladder. We got a nice profile shot that shows a very recognizable Jantzi profile - a miniature Terry, just like Valerie (I know people say she looks more like me, but the profile is all Dad!).

Yesterday we also had the fun of seeing some old friends from Bolivia days and catching up on all the MCC Bolivia alum news (from the '90s anyway). Their youngest daughter is checking out EMU for college next year. Terry remembers when she was a 2-year-old who fell asleep on his lap on a road trip and then peed on him :-). A little forerunner of his future as a dad!

Today we're going to sign the papers to refinance our house so that we can charge a reasonable rent while we're gone and still cover the mortgage. Then in the afternoon I'll be interpreting for parent-teacher conferences at the local elementary school. I hope I still remember how to do that!

It really feels like spring this week, with balmy, sunny weather and crocuses popping up all over. You can see a faint reddish haze spreading over the bare branches of the trees as they begin to bud out. The snow is all gone, and the ground is mushy and wet. The sunshine feels WONDERFUL.

5

Five years ago today, we lost Aaron. Thinking of him today, and Anita, Solana, and the whole Kane/Hernandez clan in FL. Miss you, man.

22

Valerie is 22 months old today!
(And little brother is 22 weeks!)
I give you, her hat tricks.












At some point this past month Valerie decided that she HAD to have a hat on her head at all times, 24/7. Fortunately I have a lot of knitted hats lying around - some I made for myself - and she doesn't seem to particularly care which one she wears as long as there is something on her head. She learned how to put them on by herself and it's just very cute to see her doing so.

The down side is that when she's very tired and trying to go to sleep, she can't seem to get the hat adjusted to her liking, and it goes something like this: Lie down. Hat gets crooked. Sit up, take hat off, put hat on, lie down. Hat gets crooked. Sit up, take hat off, put hat on, lie down. Saturday night she did this for AN HOUR AND A HALF. Finally we took all the hats away. She cried and cried like her heart was breaking, desperately signing "hat hat hat hat." At that point I was so tired and frustrated I started to cry too! The minute she heard me, she stopped - lay down, and fell instantly asleep.

I'm not sure if we're going to take the hats away permanently at some point - especially as the weather gets warmer - sometimes she wakes up from her nap with her head all sweaty from the warm wool - we'll see how it goes over the next few days.

37

Home again, home again

The trip went well, but it's good to be home! V. did well while I was gone although apparently she didn't eat much. She's in this funny phase right now where she has to have a hat on her head at all times, 24/7! It's very cute and I have a ton of pictures I need to download. At the same time it's kind of a pain at night because when she lies down the hat often goes askew, and she has to sit up and re-situate it before she can lie down again. Sometimes 6-8 times in a row which gets annoying when we're trying to settle her in for the night.

It's so nice having warmer weather now. V. loves to play outside, stepping in the leftover piles of snow, throwing gravel around, poking at things with sticks.

I think I've cracked the code on her hand-to-nose/mouth gesture - I think it means "moon/sun." She often does it when looking at a book with a picture of the sun or moon in it.

Road Trip

So tomorrow morning I'm heading to Ithaca for a grad student workshop on im/migration studies. We're all presenting works-in-progress in panel format with different professors as discussants. I'm really looking forward to it; a chance to run some ideas by a group of people interested in the same topics. According to the schedule, I got the very last slot of the day... 4:30 p.m. on a Friday... I told a friend I'm going to have to borrow an outfit from Lady Gaga just to keep people awake...

I'll be driving up alone, staying with friends in Trumansburg, then driving back home on Saturday. Two nights away from the little one. I'm a little nervous about what it's going to do to her sleep patterns but since my entire advisory committee is involved in this event it seemed like a good idea to go.

Name Game

Terry pointed out to me that if you take the first letter of each name in the poll and put them together, you get INGOT. Which means bar of gold.

In case you can't read the yellow font (sorry I haven't figured out how to fix that in the formatting), the names are:

Ivan

Nathan

Gabriel

Oscar

Tobias

So far Gabriel is the front runner in the poll!

By Popular Demand

So a few people have been asking me to post more about the baby, so I thought it fitting to do that today, when we officially mark the halfway point of this pregnancy (!).

Actually I don't know all that much about what's going on with the baby, other than the daily kicks and wiggles I get periodically, which is always fun. Actually a few days ago Valerie was lying across my torso and, whereas I usually have to tell her, "don't kick your baby brother," this time I had to tell my belly, "Don't kick your big sister!" I doubt she noticed anything but it amused me.

In two more weeks I go in for the full anatomy scan, where they measure all the major body parts and check that the internal organs are developing properly. Hopefully we'll get some good pictures :-) That's usually the scan where you also have the option of finding out the sex, but since we had a fancy schmantzy 3D scan at 13 weeks we already know!

We have a short list of boy names in mind, which I plan to put up in the sidebar as a poll - so you can actually submit a vote for your favorite! Not that we'll use the results to choose a name (I have a pretty strong feeling for one of them in particular) but I'm kind of curious what people think.

As for the pregnancy from my point of view, it's been uneventful so far. My blood pressure readings have been lower than they were at this time in my previous pregnancy, which is reassuring, and chances are slim that I'll develop hypertension again. I had very mild symptoms in the first trimester, and even though I still seem to need a daily nap I think that has more to do with Valerie's night-waking than the pregnancy. This trimester I've been adapting to the growing belly, and feeding it well :-). I've not had really strong cravings, per se, although I've developed a greater-than-usual fondness for ice cream. Normally I'm pretty indifferent to ice cream, I could take it or leave it, don't really care, but now I'm going through a pint a week. And not really interested in the chocolate flavors. My favorite flavor right now is Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake. Cheesecake being another dessert that I'm normally indifferent to. So, Dairy! Yes, this baby is definitely a Jantzi!

I've sorted out all Valerie's old clothes and set aside the ones that are neutral or actually boy clothes, and we've got quite a lot for the first 6 months or so. After that it's pretty much all pink, or embellished with hearts and flowers. I'm working on a couple knitting projects - a purple sweater and a sky-blue hat - and soon plan to start a newborn set in green (socks, hat, and possibly vest if I have enough yarn). The green yarn I bought in Savannah right after finding out we were pregnant, for the new baby, before knowing the sex.

So that's a quick update.